Join the 10th anniversary benefit that will blow your mind. This April, your support will help one of the most important voices in art criticism, reporting, and activism rise to even greater levels. And what better way to honor this year’s theme, Power Women, than by honoring one of the century’s most significant and influential artists, Laurie Anderson. This is gonna be awesome.

The art world must have speculative fiction on the brain. The week starts with a discussion of the art of 2050 and continues with art about the seen and unseen (“the unknown” is a pervasive theme this week). There’s also a lot having to do with data: the good, the bad, and the ugly—depending on how you feel about infographics.

For one housing complex in Mumbai, monkeys are the new rats. Sounds kinda cute until you read the article and realize that it’s actually terrifying because monkeys 1) are smart enough to figure out sliding glass windows and elevator buttons, 2) have long, pointy teeth, and 3) straight-up give no fucks. Yikes. [Mid-day]

Ready for your daily dose of low self-esteem? These 40 individuals represent the most “talented, driven and dynamic” professionals under the age of 40 who are working in New York City today. @juliaxgulia and overachievers everywhere. [Crain’s New York Business]

Job interviews are tough enough. Bringing up personal stuff, like maybe wanting to start a family and needing to know that it won’t be a problem, can make it even more awkward. So now there’s a Tumblr that attempts to catalog maternity/paternity/family leave policies so job seekers know what they’re getting into when they sign on with a new company. [Having it Some]

The heavens exploded and in its wake, we received clouds. Not just any clouds, though: Faith Holland’s painterly GIF, “Equivalents,” shows us a milieu of digital and analog clouds that defy time and space. They’re trans-dimensional, trans-chronological. But none of that makes this a crazy GIF. No, it’s a scene of organized chaos. Every Mario-Brothers cloud stays in its own lane, never crashing into the serious gray stratus clouds that plod along at a different speed. To each their own, in this racetrack in the sky.

Jimmy Van Bramer, one of New York City’s most active council members, is due to submit a bill that will allow for community feedback on public art commissions. Van Bramer envisions town-hall-style meetings early on in the design process—this is necessary. Re: Public outcry against the Jeff Koons statue in California and here, in Long Island City, Ohad Meromi’s pink-man sculpture. [New York Times]

In Bangladesh, a blogger was knifed to death on a busy street in Dhaka. According to local sources, he had been targeted before because of “anti-Islamic writing.” This incident marks the second writer-related killing in Bangladesh this month. [BBC News]

Either selfies are evil, or people are. Over the weekend, Instagram was filled with people smiling for selfies against the backdrop of the East Village fire. [New York Post]

In related news, both Coachella and Lollapalooza are banning selfie sticks this year. (Coachella reps calls them “narcissistics,” lol.) [Stereogum]

Best read of the week, and possibly the month: “The Rise of the Cryptopticon.” Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies and law professor at the University of Virginia, tracks the legal history of privacy and surveillance in the United States, from the 20th century to our digital age. [The Hedgehog Review via Alexis Madrigal]

Finally! Macaroni salad and plain Jello are cool again. Drop that kale and get yourself to a Denny’s because normcore food is a thing now. Supposedly. [The Awl]

Yep, art by famous artists = still really expensive. Roy Lichtenstein’s “The Ring (Engagement)” is expected to fetch around $50 million at auction at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 12. [Huffington Post]

You too can get laid like a Lannister. British sex toy company Bondera released their “Game of Bones” product line, a Game of Thrones-themed lineup of dildos and bondage gear for sci-fi/fantasy and cheesy innuendo lovers everywhere. God, their copywriters are so lucky. [Flavorwire via Mashable]

Chicago jack-of-all-art-trades Shannon Stratton named the new chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design. You’re welcome, New York. [The Observer]

Good afternoon, Internets! I’ll be recapping the afternoon’s events at MarKEt, a daylong symposium about how to be an art “professional”—you know, how to deal with art and suits. Right now, I’m sitting with the MacBook Army (Kate Sierz, Pepper Kelly, and Sid Branca) under Romanesque chandeliers. We came up with #market15, so you can keep up with us over there, too.

No fences:This May, the European Commission will unveil its plans for a single digital market in the EU. [Courthouse News Service]

Wisconsin Governor—and presidential hopeful—Scott Walker wants to slash $300 million in funding to the University of Wisconsin schools. You know who’s not happy about this? University of Wisconsin President Ray Cross, who has announced that he will resign if the governor’s cuts stand. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

The people have spoken, and they want George Carlin. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will unveil a photographic portrait of the late comedian today. Carlin’s portrait was chosen, in a public vote, over those representing comedians Ellen DeGeneres and Groucho Marx. [Variety, National Portrait Gallery]

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos—immortalized by the YouTube hit “Hot Cheetos and Takis”—has been approved as a healthy snack in some state public schools. The revised, whole-grain version has already hit Chicago. [WBEZ]

Okay, who can name book-sculpture that doesn’t ferry off cheeseball connections between text and the mind? Because these 25 “most incredibly beautiful book sculptures ever” are terrible—and the site doesn’t even name the artists. [Earthporm]

Rhizome’s Seven on Seven line up this year is off the hook: Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight), Ai Weiwei (activist artist), Jacob Appelbaum (Wikileaks representative and Edward Snowden confidant), and Gina Trapani (co-founder of ThinkUp). And the ticket price is sooooo reasonable, at $40 for artists and $125 for regular admission. [Rhizome]

Technology for poo-flingers? “Have you ever wanted to pick up your poop and throw it at the wall? No? Oh, well, we have. Quite a few times actually…. Anyways, Bathroom Simulator is the game where you can do that.” Since this writing, the game’s Kickstarter campaign has raised $114. [Bathroom Simulator]

“Axel Brechensbauer 3D-printed a cheerful-looking UAV that would playing loud ‘clown music’ and spray ‘terrorists’ with a cloud of Oxycontin, a pain-relief drug that also induces feelings of euphoria, relaxation and reduced anxiety.” [We Make Money Not Art]

A review of Alberto Toscano and Jeff Kinkle’s ‘Cartographies of the Absolute’ cataloguing artists’s attempts to create ‘maps which could serve to show us where we are located, to guide us to capital’s weak points, and to indicate current and future dynamics.’ [The New Inquiry]

What a weird story: An investigator who does not know who her client is, has been making inquires about an NYU professors who criticized the university for the exploitation of migrant workers building their campus. The same investigator also sought out information for a New York Times reporter who wrote a story on the harsh conditions. Creepy. [The New York Times]

Will the negative press from MoMA’s Björk retrospective ever end? Earlier this week, Christian Viveros-Faune wrote a mammoth expose on the subject that included calling for the firing of MoMA Curator-at-Large Klaus Biesenbach, and the rest of the week has been dedicated to the responses. Naturally Artnet has already rounded them up and added the thoughts of much maligned former MoCA Director Jeffrey Deitch. (Deitch compares the diatribes against Biesenbach to those that were lodged against him two years ago.)